All three college kids had a long weekend this past weekend, and all three opted to come home, which led to some complicated logistics and a lot of driving and a fun visit. I took two photos total, which is hard to explain since normally I take one million photos. I think I was a little preoccupied with the number of PEOPLE here and the amount of FOOD needed.
This was Henry’s first time home since leaving for college. He walked in the front door and said “Oh right! Now I can assess What Our House Smells Like! It smells like…varnish…and coffee…and…something else?” Me: “Ha, not cat box, I hope.” Henry, joyfully: “YES! Cat box!” Great. I do feel it’s inevitable that a House With Pets is going to smell like Pets—but also I spent extra time this weekend scraping the boxes and adding baking soda to the litter.
Henry, who is having an excellent freshman year, told us very casually that OH BY THE WAY, no-bigs but both of his roommates (he’s in a triple) moved out a week or two ago, on the same day, without telling him. This was, as you can imagine, riveting news to all of us. Upon questioning, we learned that the day before the disappearance, the roommates were packing boxes—but like books and stuff, not bedding, and they didn’t say anything about it, and Henry couldn’t think of any casual way to ask what they were doing. (As a group, none of us could think of any natural/casual way to ask either.) (As a group, we also reflected on how awkward it also could have been for the roommates to explain what was going on. Like, what are they going to say? “Oh, hi! We have conspired and we are both leaving you, because we don’t like living with you and would rather not!”) The next day Henry came back to his room after class to find both roommates and all their things gone, and his perishables from the shared refrigerator were sitting warmly on the windowsill. (Much discussion about this. If there were no hard feelings, why not put the items in the dorm-floor fridge, and leave a note? But also: I remember being 18, and not always finding it easy to think of Solutions. I can imagine the thought process that goes something like “We need to take the fridge with us == We cannot take our roommate’s items with us == There is no other fridge in the room == No solution found.”)
We discussed it multiple times, at some length each time. (My first question: “Are you…a terrible roommate?”) Many theories, many questions—especially since in the case of Roommate Issues at this school, there is a process involving the Roommate Contract and a sit-down meeting with the RA and if necessary the RD, which did not happen. Which means the roommates did not lodge any sort of Complaint about Henry.
When I asked if Henry had had had ANY issues with his roommates, Henry said it was true that his roommates wanted to watch movies until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and that he, Henry, had sometimes taken his comforter and gone to sleep in the dorm lounge. I asked had he been HUFFY or DOOR-SLAMMY about it; he said he MIGHT have been a little huffy by definition (one cannot leave the room at 2:30 a.m. with a blanket without being Huffy) but NOT door-slammy. I asked had he made any vocalizations of huffiness, and he said he THOUGHT not. But even so: if he HAD been vocally huffy at 2:30 in the morning—would that be enough to cause roommates to move out?
I have no satisfying answer for you, but I do have a theory that holds water. Henry mentioned something we hadn’t known before, which is that his two roommates met during freshman orientation (which is held early in summer), and had decided during orientation that they wanted to room together. Because of the way the housing lottery is handled, the most likely explanation is that when they logged in during their housing selection time, the only available housing with space for both of them was a triple, so they took it. The college requires a 6-week waiting period before switching rooms, but you can submit an application any time during that waiting period; so they may have signed up immediately, even before meeting Henry, to switch to a double if/when it became available—and, when the six-week point arrived last week, they may have been approved. It’s hard for me to imagine circumstances leading to an EMPTY DOUBLE—but there is apparently ample housing this particular year.
Still, questions linger. Why didn’t the roommates say anything? (Well, actually, when I try to think of what I would say if I were them, especially if I imagine being 18, I find I flounder.) Maybe a better question is, why didn’t the RA say anything, or check in on Henry? Imagine being the resident assistant for a floor of freshmen. Imagine there is a triple where TWO students suddenly move out, six weeks into freshman year. Wouldn’t you…make sure the remaining freshman student was okay? SOME freshmen would be dancing around the room in their underpants to loud music, yelling “YES! YES!! YES!!!!”—but surely others would be feeling abandoned, hurt, rejected, isolated. It seems like it would be WORTH CHECKING IN. It’s been nearly two weeks and she has not checked in. Elizabeth, weighing in: “The RAs are high and don’t care.” Oh…kay.
Well now I have an intense urge to track down and interview everyone involved in this… desertion? room switch? rapturing?
My immediate thought was ROMANCE. That either the roommates are romantically involved and wanted privacy, or they *were* romantically involved and broke up and could no longer stand to live in each other’s proximity. I suppose that would mean they now live in separate rooms – does Henry know for sure that they live together?
Or! Does he know for sure that they still attend school? Perhaps they were both expelled for something horrible and dramatic that Henry has remained blissfully unaware of????
Perhaps my imagination is a little overeager at the moment.
Fascinating though!!!! So many possibilities!
And now what happens??? Does Henry have a triple all to himself? And how does he feel about that?
Oh!! Romance and/or the ending of romance are possibilities I had failed to consider!! That is interesting! We DON’T know for sure that they moved to a new room together OR that they still attend school.
Henry has the triple all to himself but the college can move new roommates in at any time. HOWEVER: it SOUNDS as if, if the college were going to do so, it would have done it at the same time the other roommates moved out. That was the re-distribution era. At this point, it’s more likely he’ll have it to himself for the rest of the semester and might get new roommates at the beginning of the spring semester. He is STOKED to have the room to himself, but feels he OUGHT to have roommates, for The College Experience, so it’s kind of win-win.
“The RAs are high and don’t care” !!! Honestly, an A+ assessment from Elizabeth. From the tales I heard from my oldest when she was a RA, there are definitely *at least a few* that care, but they are probably high. It’s truly a crap job lol.
I think first, the thing I feel like is often true is that so often these things are more about the other kid(s) than the kid left behind so I wouldn’t take it peronally if I were Henry (althought self reflection is not a bad thing either in my opinion). Also, I was an RA and I was fairly shocked at the lack of RA involvment during my daughter’s freshman year. She escaped roommate issues, but she had almost no interactions with her RA aside from a quick inspection before winter break to make sure the fridge was unplugged and cleared out and trash was taken out, etc. (and a move-out inspection). The RA was more like an apartment manager. I had a semester-long RA training class learning about things like team building, respecting differences suicide prevention, communication skills, first aid and CPR , etc. etc. We had bi-weekly social activities open to everyone on my floor. We did rounds (one pair of RAs every night walking around the dorm). Looking back it was kind of a lot on an undergrad student to be an RA, and I witnessed kids going through all manor of tough things. Just makes me wonder if this low RA involvement is everywhere now?
I wonder this, too. RAs in my time were THE most involved, most respected, most social kids on campus. And they made freshman dorms so fun, and informative (the biweekly activities)! My kid’s RA (he started undergrad in ’22) was a mystery to me. I do wonder if there’s been some Great Shift in Residence Life. It’s SO weird to me. Like, why did we decide that 17 and 18yo’s away from home for the first time don’t need any help now? Is it because they can Google??
I feel like the RA job is just different than it was 30 years ago?? My undergrad RA’s were SUPER involved, organized social activities, checked on kids, had an open door policy if anyone needed to talk or just hang out…and my 2 college kids’ RA’s are just…absent. I wonder how much of it has to do with RA’s now being deemed a Responsible Adult who has to report students for infractions??? My RA’s were explicitly NOT instructed/told to police student activity, but I feel like that has changed. The whole thing makes me a little sad!! I loved my RA’s, they really positively impacted my college experience.
I am DYING to know what happened with the roommate move out!! Please update if you learn anything!!
Well, now *I’m* riveted by this story. I would watch an entire docu-series on what even HAPPENED. My money’s on your theory that a double room had suddenly become available—but why not tell him if that’s the case? It would be beyond awkward, sure, but “nothing against you personally; we just wanted a double” is less awkward than just…disappearing? 18-year-old logic, I guess.
Is Henry upset at all by the situation? Or just baffled?
My college roommate was the actual worst, and if she’d moved out with no notice one day I would have rejoiced. But I also would have had a lot of questions!
He seems mostly baffled—but Henry is a kid who will pretend not to be upset when he IS upset, so it is hard to tell. He’s glad to have the room to himself, and to be free of the nighttime issues: the aforementioned staying up late watching movies, but also one roommate (1) snored and (2) routinely slept through his alarm.
Well, that’s good at least. Has Henry tried contacting them? I don’t know if there’s a non-awkward way to broach the topic, but there also isn’t a non-awkward way to move out of a shared room without telling one of your roommates, so.
I think your hypothesis ( double opened up so they moved) is highly likely. It’s not unusual for a college to have a few open rooms after the dust settles in the first month of a semester. People ” melt” – don’t show up for classes in the fall even if they paid a deposit. Kids get homesick the first week- and due to instant communication of the modern era, by constantly talking to people at home, they don’t settle in at campus and decide to go home. ( Back in my day, kids usually just had to suffer through homesickness, wait for letters, and adjust. Or plan on leaving at end of semester.) Students realize the college ( academics, location, living situation) is a complete mismatch for them and drop out. And some kids families make them come back home, due to disfunction or crisis. So shuffling of rooms occurs. Maybe he can keep his single? Most students would be thrilled. ( except i have one daughter who wants roomates at school and never a single. Hiow did I give birth to an extrovert?)
I hope Henry doesn’t take it personally- those boys were just trying not to cause drama, IMO.
I think your theory about the roommates requesting a double is highly possible. I had one other thought. Does this college have live-in sororities/fraternities? Mine did Rush Week after classes had started and there was a grace period for moving into a house after pledging. Perhaps these roommates, being friends already, pledged a fraternity together and both moved into the frat house after the pledging process was done.
It DOES, and we asked Henry about it; he says as far as he knows the roommates weren’t trying to get into a fraternity. But….I am not 100% sure that Henry would have noticed if they were!
Oh, this is an interesting theory! At my university, freshmen who pledged stayed in the dorms for the rest of the year and then moved into the house the following year, so it hadn’t occurred to me.
My roommate moved out with almost no warning my sophomore year! She told me it was because she had shared her room with a sibling her entire life and she wanted to see what it was like to have her own room and one had come available. Okay, great. This also left me with my own room for the rest of the year which was MAGNIFICENT. However, I found out later (it was a small school and she just moved to the other side of the hall) that it was because she hated me and wanted to drink in her room every night. (It was a dry campus.) I know! Can you imagine someone hating me? Anyway, I convinced her not to date a 29 year old elementary school teacher (she was 18) before she left so I did my good deed for the month there.
I don’t want to introduce more worries, but, please check and see that the college is not going to charge Henry an increased rate for a single now! I also doubt he is getting new roommates, and this actually happened to one of my advisees (I teach at a college). His roommate moved out and the bills suddenly started mounting up. Completely unreasonable, but that’s higher education these days. Also agree that RAs are high these days and that is quite different than 30 years ago, when they were expected to act as adults.
My kid is applying to college and I’m so interested in the roommate topic! Funny how 18 year olds communicate or rather don’t do it! With my my college roommate we got off to a bad start because we had different sleeping/waking schedules and I thought she wasn’t considerate. Probably could have been solved quickly with a conversation. After that initial friction, we became good friends and we’re still close.
My son moved out of his first dorm room suddenly, but the warning signs were all there- by the time he went to the housing people and told them what was going on, they said yup, new room, we’ll help you move in RIGHT NOW. And they did help him move. But there were Signs! And the roommate he left was absolutely talked to. Moving out with no signs and no Talk To means to me that it was just a better opportunity for them, and they probably weren’t friendly enough with Henry to discuss it with him? At least that’s how my kid would be…18 year olds, such buttheads sometimes!
The not TELLING is the strangest part! Why no talking?
I, too, am awaiting the Netflix documentary on The Disappearing Roommates. My younger daughter went away to college in the fall of 2020 (yes, then) and her first assigned roommate never showed up. They’d been randomly assigned and had no communication ahead of the semester, and we never found out what happened there. Her second roommate was assigned shortly after the semester started but ALSO never showed up. Of the two suitemates, one lived there but went home a lot, and the other dropped out mid-fall semester. It was very lonely for my kid; she eventually made friends down the hall but combined with COVID restrictions on the dining hall, etc. it was a terribly crappy year altogether. Here is hoping Henry makes friends down the hall!
I can relate to Henry because I had a Roommate Situation my freshman year that I was oblivious to, and then 100% ignored. Apparently, my roommate didn’t like me, and talked to everyone else but me about it. She was the kind of person who would give you the silent treatment as punishment, but I just thought she wanted to be left alone when she went non-verbal, so I left her alone? Maybe I was supposed to beg for her forgiveness and grovel? No idea. I liked the silent treatment!
Anyway, she was in cahoots with Mutual Friend down the hall who didn’t like her roommates either and they were planning a switcheroo that involved four rooms, 11 freshmen girls and maybe musical chairs. I found out by accident and then was like ‘oh, ok?’. Don’t threaten me with a good time. I didn’t think it would happen since their plan neglected to include the free will of the unwanted roommates.
Then after xmas like half the dorm dropped out so a room opened up and they both moved to live with each other in a double without having to activate operation switcheroo. I had a double all to myself spring semester and lived like an introverted queen. By the end of the school year they were not on speaking terms and Mutual Friend asked me how I ever put up with my roommate’s ‘moods.’ Pro tip: I ignored them
This is a funny and well-told story!
This is not surprising to me at all, knowing high school students like I do. I work at a big high school and also have a senior and a junior this year of my own. I hate to generalize, but BOYS are the worst and I hate to generalize more but I see a lot of parents just … not allowing their boys to grow up the way they do their girls. I just was on a college tour yesterday and this mom was harping and harping and HARPING on this poor student tour guide we had yesterday about Door Dash and Grub Hub and Uber Eats – could students get food by those means? Were there ever any PROBLEMS with that? The tour guide was like, um, people order door dash all the time and don’t think there’s any problems with it, but it was super awkward and the student looked like he wanted to be swallowed up the earth right then and there. I feel like students this age can’t just talk to each other the way that we could and I’m afraid it’s because they don’t have to. The boys who moved out on Henry probably didn’t have to talk to one person to do it, just make a mark in an app on their phone and .. .that’s all they can do! I weep for the future.
Oh, God, yes. I still teach at a college, though who knows for how much longer before THEY shut us all down, and that is exactly the problem. No one has ever taught these kids that they have to open their mouths and speak for themselves. Someone–and if it is not the parents, it is the school–is always inventing some kind of way where they get what they want without ever being in a situation where things are awkward or they don’t feel “safe.” I have students whose IEP/504 plan states that I am not allowed to call on them in class or ask them to speak to another student in class. I have no idea how to help you if you can’t say what you need.
That mother–maybe she wondered if gravity was supplied on campus or if breathing costs extra during these four years. I feel really sorry for that poor guide. And her son.
For what it’s worth, my mind immediately went to the same place as the first comment from Suzanne – romance! My freshman daughter’s roommate situation seems ideal thus far. They were a random match, but get along extremely well and do everything together. My only fear is that they will tire of each other or have a conflict, and then she will lose both a good friend and struggle with her living environment. That’s probably just my over-anxious brain though – they seem to get along so well because they are similarly low-drama people. Elizabeth’s comment about the RA made me snort with laughter and is also probably very true. On a related note, are you surprised by the number of college kids that smoke cigarettes now? Weed, yes, I’m not at all surprised. But I am truly baffled that a large number of students seem to start regularly smoking when they get to college. Maybe this is just my kids school though? It is a smaller liberal arts campus.
My freshman daughter has put in for a room change. She likes her roommate, but can’t stand her suitemates. Well one of them at least. This girl won’t flush the toilet. Just doesn’t. It’s a quirk my fastidious daughter can’t live with. Her RA claims he can’t do anything about it. My daughter thinks that he’s just uncomfortable dealing with bathroom habits of an 18 year old girl.
Angus tends to come home and, after the initial greeting and whatever, wander around examining every room minutely, for things that have changed or that he never noticed before. I just realized on this visit that he does it, and I find it charming.
It took me a beat to realize that they didn’t come home for Thanksgiving (which yes, I agree wholly with your comment, have said many times that your Thanksgiving is timed so cruelly, especially for the women who I assume do most of the work).
The RAs are high and don’t care. Oh dear, that is so plausible. How STRANGE. Except teenage boys are so dumb and oblivious, maybe not? Angus’s roommate moved out first year, but it was a tiny room and they had opposite schedules (Angus wanted to study and the roommate… less so) so the roommate said Angus snored and they both ended up with their own room.
I thought at first they hadn’t taken the fridge but had still left his stuff out, which would seem more obviously hostile but…. Oy. The mysteries of human behaviour.
I told this story this morning to my high school senior and he did a whole dramatic recreation of how the perishables may have ended up on the windowsill (he was strangely fixated on that part) but the lack of communication seemed understandable to him! “Bros didn’t want to steal his butter!”
I never went to college in America nor to a university that included housing , so I can’t weigh in on the “what exactly happened in Henry’s situation” or “what will happen next”, but I can share one personal experience with Henry:
When trying to move to the city my university was in, I applied to housemate ads, and was invited to what were essentially “housemate interviews” where the people already living in an accommodation invite 5-10 potential new housemates, to basically chat with them to discover who they’d like to live with, and thus offer the available room to. I wasn’t trying super hard because I wasn’t desperate to move, and so I did not mind too much that I was never picked. After a year or so, my then-partner and I decided to move in together and just get apartment for the two of us.
I was very happy to move in together and we had a good time, but in the first year I did have the back-of-mind worry of “we moved in together before living with housemates! I am missing a very COMMON UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE! Some people stay friends with their college roommates forever! AM I MAKING A HUGE MISTAKE MISSING OUT ON THIS?”. However, the years went by, and I enjoyed the privileges that NOT living with housemates has, while hearing Horror Stories from friends that DID have to live with housemates to find accommodations. I am now a graduated adult who lives alone, and do not feel like I made a mistake, nor that I missed something fundamental. I am assuming Henry won’t even stay roommate-less forever, he’ll probably back to to it next semester, or next college year? Either way, I’d like to tell him to not worry he is missing out on anything right now :)
This mystery would make an excellent Netflix series!
My randomly assigned freshman roommate never responded to my emails or phone calls, but also never moved in, so I had a double to myself for the start of my freshman year.
Until I got a note from housing in my mailbox, alerting me that a new roommate would be moving in soon. I quickly found out it was the high school frienemy of two girls on my floor, who had decided she wanted to live with me rather than in the overflow housing room that had 6 girls in it.
Fair, on her part, but I did not want to live with her as she was the person we had to lock into a room one night with three other people because she was drunk and underage, police were wandering around due to some other students throwing a party in their dorm room, and she kept trying to climb out the 4th story windows to escape because they were so mean to her and wouldn’t let her do what she wanted. And there were stories about her picking up men and bringing them back to her roommates’ beds.
So I marched my butt into housing and told them that if she moved in, I would be moving right back out, so which did they prefer? They were baffled, because she had told them that I was totally on board with this plan,. She ended up moving into a double that was ground level.
I quickly got a friend from high school who was in a triple with two foreign exchange students who spoke only Chinese in the room, even to her, to move into my room with mine, figuring that Housing knew that I had a double to myself and would move someone else in sooner or later.
In retelling this story now, the part that most baffles me is that Housing alerted me with a paper notice in my mailbox. What if I didn’t check my mail on a regular basis?!